Knock back moves are not necessary to the full dps rotation of any class. It's more of a tool than a dps asset, and can easily be ignored or saved for when you might actually need it.

The FFXIV Machinist should have been kicked for being an idiot

Knock back moves are not necessary to the full dps rotation of any class. It's more of a tool than a dps asset, and can easily be ignored or saved for when you might actually need it (like interrupting an attack, or temporarily stalling an accidental pull by pushing the target you pulled in the tank's direction.). The bigger issue is that people who use knockbacks willy-nilly within dungeons are developing a bad habit that can severely F* up a Tank or position dependent Dps.

Sure, War's and Drks can just spam their respective aoe's, but Pld's cannot do this to the same effect (Flash deals no dmg and has lower threat gen, so, as much as you can continually spam it, it does not hold aggro to the same effect as overpower or unleash). Further, each Tank's aoe has an effective range that is shorter than any in-game knockback. Meaning any target knocked out of your range is getting less threat gen than the targets that are close by. This is not a big deal when your dps is all melee or has lower potency attacks like a Machinist or Bard, but if you have a high dmg AOE in your dps (like Black Mage or Summoner) the target that is outside of your AOE range, or outside of your immediate enmity combo range, is at HIGH risk of being pulled by peripheral dmg done by casters. Especially if it's a big pull with 4 or more targets.

On 4 or more pulls, every tank's enmity gen combo only grants enmity bonus on the 2nd or 3rd attack, which means you only have 2 attacks to split enmity ffxiv gil between your enemies. That means that for every one enmity rotation half of the targets in a 4 or more pull are going without direct enmity gen (being held purely by peripheral aggro by tank aoes). Knock-backs only make this problem worse, because you might be forced to skip a target because some idiot knocked him out of your range.

For high-end tanks, this is a bigger problem because they like to maximize their dps output as well as hold enmity. Knock-backs make this difficult to do because you might have to interrupt your own rotation to throw in a ranged attack or an extra AOE to compensate for missing a direct enmity combo move on the target that got pushed away.

Further, Dragoon and MNK's have position specific moves that are difficult to get dmg bonuses on if the target is constantly being turned or moved. I can tell you first hand that the full Dps rotation for Dragoon's is actually quite complicated, and 3 moves require specific positioning if you want to optimize their dps. 6 moves (7 at lvl 60) require all the targets to be close by if the Dragoon wants to optimize their overall dps.

DR: The use of the knock-back as part of a regular rotation only gets in the way, and actively nerfs the dps output of tanks and melee dps (and technically casters if the knock-back pushes the target outside of caster AOE range). So, when the Machinist said he was "just doing his job" he was actually doing the exact opposite. Dps should be making targets die quicker, not slower.

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